Lost in Translation

Both of my daughters began talking at an early age, with first words being around 9 and 10 months respectively. The boy took a lot longer in my opinion, but certainly didn't fall outside "the norm". Right now, his speech is a mixture of gibberish and totally clear statements. He also has some quirky words and phrases that I love and admittedly don't try to change just yet. Gimme a break, he's my last baby and I want to keep him that way! While his slightly older sister (who starts Kindergarten on Tuesday - yahoo!) speaks perfectly clearly, she has some pretty funny replacement words that make me wonder if she just doesn't hear them properly. A couple that I can call to mind right now are:

She calls the fast food restaurant A&W, "Alien and W"
While away in Tofino, she was calling the anemones that we found "sea enemies"

But Hayden has some good ones too. In the mornings, he'll say to me "I want offa shoes on", which means "take off this stupid orthopaedic brace!" He has a plastic toy wolf and donkey and he calls them his "rain-dogs" - occasionally he actually will say "reindeer" - either way it is funny! If he actually uses the word "donkey", he means "doughnut" (it comes out more like "done-key" - but we laugh at the irony of it since he has the above toy. "Mighty Machines" and "medicine" both sound like "my shee-sheen", but with a subtle difference that only I can detect. He calls my mom "Nina" (all the other grands call her "Nanny") and my dad "Gumpa" (all the others call him "Grandad"). He has some pretty normal pronunciations of things, where the letter k is replaced with a t (kitty=titty, Kessie=Tessie), etc.

Every once in awhile he'll surprise me and come out with a sentence that is clear as a bell. For example while we were away, he had to sleep in the same bed as us (it was torture and I don't even want to talk about it) and one morning he head-butted me in the face and said into my ear "MOM WAKE UP, I'M HUNGRY!"

All in all I'd say his speech is right on track and there is only the odd time where he says something that I just cannot translate and he gets very frustrated with me.

In other news, Kestrel starts Kindergarten next week (as mentioned above) and she is pretty stoked. It's the end of another era in my life and also hers. She will now be in the clutches of the school system and everything that I say will have no value against what the teacher says. not that that isn't happening already tho'. I hope things get more normal around here now that school is back on track.

Oh, and we still have a garbage strike on here with no other community services. Nice. I guess it's a good thing that I don't frequent the library and would rather buy books instead!